This time I am tracking all the renos on our house in Queanbeyan. There will be a few differences. Because it cost so much to purchase the house, we will conduct our renovations with a mind to maximise capital return and minimise costs.

The house is a four bedroom weatherboard (alum. cladding now), with timber floors, one bathroom and an '80s kitchen. It is quite spacious and the block is over 800 sqm.

Our priorities will be to refurbish the kitchen, put in an ensuite, re-line the walls in 3 of the rooms, establish the gardens, kit-out the sleepout and if money allows convert the tile roof to iron.

We have already sanded the timber floors and I am halfway through shelving the study. The overall theme will be country cottage - suggestions are more than welcome.

The house cost $415,000. I think in this area the most we could get for a good 4 bedroom house with ensuite would be around $550,000. Above that people are expecting a little more that I think will would be impractical to provide (pools etc) We can value add the sleepout a bit, by putting in a bathroom and kitchenette (I think potential buyers would be attracted to the extra $150-$200 pw rent they could get).

Photos to follow, hopefully I won't take quite as long as I did with our first reno!!

__________________

Orange benchtops? Yellow Handles? Fake woodgrain finish

__________________

Cream benchtops, but 2/3 aint bad!

__________________

yea i dont know how popular a pool would be in quenbeyan! must be freezing their be now, are you going to keep the alum. cladding?

I think so, it looks fine and is maintenance free. If when we are said and done, it detracts from the overall value of the place then we'll look at it but at this stage I see no reason to remove it.

Personally, it is not something I would put on a house, but now that it is here......

__________________

I am really looking forward to following your renovation. I am under way with ours now and have set up a blog for it

This was the first job. We got Larry McCully to sand the floors throughout the house. The boards in the lounge, hall and front bedrooms was Ironbark. The boards were all set about 3-5mm apart, I think to try and save money on coverage? So we decided to try and create a shiplap effect with a mix of Poly/Lime/Oxide - Looks great but there are some cracks, as the night we ran the mix over the floor the temperature dropped to 3/4 degrees below zero - that was a bit of a frig. So we decided not to do the lounge that, but just sand and coat it as normal.

The rear bedroom was radiata pine, which we stained with a Walnut stain and sleepout was straight Baltic which we just sanded and coated.

I have put up some before and after shots of the hallway and lounge - which may have some of you thinking the original looked better!! But we are very happy with it, and I think it will suit the overall plan for the house better than the ratty old carpet which was there.

Attached Thumbnails

         

__________________

I am currently working on the study, which will be a bit a##e about face. To do it properly I should be ripping out the internal lining and recovering the whole room. However, because I am time poor and the kids need somewhere to be doing their homework, I am putting the benches and bookcases in first and the lining will come later.

The benches are made from Studleys structural packs, and the bookcases are being made from the Studleys reject flooring packs. I coated the benches with a floor poly and will probably oil the bookcases.

I dont have a before photo as such, however because I am only halfway through this job you can sort of take these as before photos - hopefully.

I am having some problems, as everything in this room is out square, its a bit like an Alice in Wonderland journey. I am trying to square things up as I go, so cornices, architraves and so on become easier to repair down the track.

Attached Thumbnails

     

__________________

I see the fishtank made the move up north OK

Good spot! We had to give the fish away before we left, I just gave them back to the fish shop they came from because I liked the guy.

Up here though, we've had a few deaths - think despite the heaters in the tank that when we are away for a few days and the temp drops too much then some of the little buggers pay the price.

__________________